I leaned in, grinning. “Touching myself? Nope. I wasn’t. Just having a great day. Lunch was good, and now, I’m here with my two favorite people in the world. Life is good.”
Griffith frowned. He wasn’t buying it.
Kyle leaned back in his chair, smiling. “Well, whatever it was, I hope we get a repeat tonight.”
“We insist,” Griffith said.
I laughed then got up. “I’m going to a swim. Who’s going to join me?”
They both got up and followed me to the edge of the sparkling blue pool.
Chapter Sixteen
Kyle
Trying to figure out what happened next was hard, and not because we were struggling to figure out what we wanted, or that we were all holding on to our careers or any of the normal stuff. It was because we really hadn’t decided what that next step would look like, and by “we,” I meant me. I was the one slowing all of this down and I hated that I was doing it.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that my beast was longing to be back in a pack. Not the pack I left, but my pack the way they treated me before I found out I was a fox on stilts and everything went to shit. I wasn’t really sure what to do with that realization, though. Because as much as my animal was willing to give the pack thing another shot, it terrified me.
Pack life wasn’t something I’d thought about for me in years because I’d assumed all packs would reject me. And they still might. Only, it wasn’t just me anymore.
We all snuggled into bed that night and I decided I couldn’t keep this all inside. I figured it was best to use the Band-Aid method and just get it all out there.
“I think my beast wants to be with the pack,” I said. “I mean, not mine, obviously.” That was the last place I ever wanted to set foot.
Falkan said very adamantly, “No, no, not yours.”
Neither of my mates hid their disdain for my adoptive pack and I loved that about them. I didn’t know what I’d have done if they’d tried to convince me it wasn’t that deep and I should give them another try. Thankfully, I didn’t need to find out.
And if I thought about it, they weren’t my pack to begin with. I was adopted into the pack, and not once had they truly loved me. They had been not much more than food and shelter for allthose years. It had nothing to do with my beast not being the same as theirs or me being adopted. It was 100 percent because they’d never fully accepted me and never would.
Thanks to my mates, I was finally getting to a spot where I was okay with that. Okay wasn’t the right word, but I was accepting it, and that was a huge step.
“He needs a family,” I said. “My wolf, I mean…”
“We’re your family,” Griffith said.
Falkan and Griffith were both holding my hands, our fingers intertwined.
“No, I know, I know you’re my family, and I’m yours. But in the bigger sense… I don’t know how your beasts are, and maybe mine’s only like this because he felt deprived for so long, but he needs to have a group that he feels like he belongs in more than just us.”
I was saying everything wrong, but my mates were patient, listening to my every word, and I appreciated that.
“Well, we have three options,” Falkan said after the three of us sat silently for nearly a minute. “We can settle with Griffith’s sleuth, or with my flight, or we can look for a pack that works for all of us.”
I looked at him. “You two would be willing to give up your own flight for me?”
“We’d be willing to give up everything.” Griffith squeezed my hand. “Where we settle down should be where you decide to be. Your home. Unlike you, we will always have ties to our past packs.”
I hadn’t considered that. It made sense. No matter where we settled, they would still be connected to their own packs. Me? I’d never have that. I could probably force something, but that wouldn’t be healthy for anyone involved. Still, I felt guilty that the decisions were being made just for me, without consideringthemselves. But they kept insisting that my finding a place I felt comfortable in was for all of us, not just me.
“How about this? On the way to my flight, why don’t we stop at Griffith’s den and check it out? We’ll see if your beast feels at home at either one of those places. If he does, great. If he doesn’t, I can use some of my connections to start putting feelers out and see who might be open for a triad.”
Usually, it was pretty easy for an omega to find a place in a new pack. They tended to welcome omegas pretty easily for a lot of reasons, the largest one sadly being our ability to grow more shifters in our belly. But alphas? That was a different story. There tended to be this underlying concern that an alpha was only there to prepare for a challenge to take over. And two alphas at once who were bonded? That would be scary for a lot of packs.
“I’m sure it’ll be one of yours,” I said, hoping that was true because I definitely didn’t want to have us starting over from scratch if we didn’t have to.
I had already submitted my resignation for work because no matter how this played out, I wasn’t staying there. The location wasn’t a good environment for our beasts, but more than that, it would have me away from them for long periods of time for stupid trips that weren’t actually needed. I wasn’t ready to be away from them, just as they weren’t ready for me to be away.
